


This Little Circle of Light

by ShadowHaloedAngel



Series: Then and Now [4]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Gen, Rebirth, The greatest phoenix metaphor the world has ever known, possible science bros if you squint
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-20
Updated: 2014-06-20
Packaged: 2018-02-05 11:21:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 796
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1816762
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShadowHaloedAngel/pseuds/ShadowHaloedAngel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The journey from the boy he was to the man he has become was never easy, but nonetheless Tony Stark understands rebirth better than most people, and he won't let a second chance pass anybody by.</p>
            </blockquote>





	This Little Circle of Light

As far as transformations went, it might not have been as miraculous and all encompassing as Captain America's had been, but Tony Stark had had his own kind of resurrection. He joked about phoenix metaphors, used them in speeches, but it really was the best choice of words he could think of. Everything had been ash and ruin, everything he had known. Sure the shell of the company was still there, trundling along as companies that size did, even without somebody directly at the helm. On the personal side, however... his father had never worked out that well, and he'd never been sure about Stane but he had pushed those doubts aside because he wanted to. He wanted to believe that it could be better, that he actually had a father figure, a family at all, who cared about him.

It had been about as far from the truth as it was possible to get, and that had been a bitter pill to swallow which had gone down all too easily. Resignation had always opened his throat, in a variety of ways. He had lost someone who had become his rock, though Pepper and Rhodey sitll stood steadfast against everything that had happened. He had lost his freedom. That hadn't been the case in a long time. There had been attempts, sure, but they were much less frequent now he was a bishop in the game, or at least a rook, rather than a pawn in other people's power plays. 

He'd learned an awful lot about truth in those three months. People had long said that the truth would set you free, and he supposed that... there was a degree of accuracy to that. Nobody had ever said the truth would be pretty or painless, or easy to accept. But it had set him free.

It had set him free from the expectations which he had shouldered for so long, trying to fit into the mould of the perfect son. It had freed him from the obligation to make weapons and be a destroyer, given him the perfect way out to begin to change his purpose, his reputation, and the world. It had set him free from all the rules people had been seeking to impose on him since before he had even been born. He had mastered how to play the game out of necessity, but now he was outside of it, separate from it, and he could manipulate it even better.

He could be Tony, he could be Iron Man, and Tony Stark when it was necessary but he was no longer needed to wear the company hat. Pepper was running it all now, and she was doing a better job than he ever had, and it left him even more free to dream and design, creating all the things he could. It was nice for them to be something different from the usual template these days.

The death scare hadn't been so fun, but that had given him a new kind of freedom. The reactor had been a chain around his neck for so long, and the poisoning was it dragging him down... the element that SHIELD led him to, even if he disapproved of their methods, gave him a way to cut that chain, as well as dismissing the threat of copycat technology and being undermined by the government. The truth had been a bitter pill to swallow once again, but he come out on top, bloodied, but still fighting, and ever more free.

When he was called in to the Avengers Initiative, it had come as a bit of a surprise, even to his delicate ego. The advantage to his consultant status was that he could come in on his own terms, and so he did. Barton and Romanoff, and Rogers too for that matter, they were there on SHIELD's terms, and Banner wasn't sure if he'd even get out of it alive. But Tony could view them all with a detachment they didn't have yet. He knew what it was like, to be in their shoes. And when Banner sounded so very trapped, he knew exactly what needed to be said.

"You can control it."

"Because I learned how."

None of it had come with ease and he had paid a price for every single scrap of knowledge he had gained, but none of it had been more than he was prepared to pay, and somehow with it he had bought back his humanity and his freedom. The arc reactor was supposed to be punishment, death, a terrible price which was meant to be his doom. Instead he had made it something more, something better, and he had absolutely no doubt that, given the opportunity, Banner could do the same.


End file.
